The Council of the Judiciary suppresses the Lago Agrio labor unit

The Plenary of the Judiciary Council suppressed the Labor Judicial Unit based in the canton of Lago Agrio, province of Sucumbíos, and expanded the labor jurisdiction to the Civil Judicial Unit of the same headquarters. The decision is contained in Resolution 224-2026, approved unanimously in Extraordinary Session No. 159-2026 on October 26, 2026, and published in the Sixth Supplement No. 398 of the Official Registry on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

The argument: 1,240 cases versus 99

The file was based on Technical Report No. DNDMCSJ-SNID-INF-2026-0034, dated September 24, 2026, regarding the “optimization of the Civil Judicial Unit with the Labor Judicial Unit of the Lago Agrio canton,” which recommended the merger of both dependencies. The decisive data was the procedural workload as of August 2026, presented by the National Directorate of Procedural Management in Memorandum No. CJ-DNGP-2026-7823-M, dated September 28, 2026: 1,240 cases in progress in the Civil Judicial Unit versus 99 cases in the Labor Judicial Unit.

To this were added the favorable reports from the provincial units of Procedural Management and Human Talent of Sucumbíos, sent by the Provincial Directorate of Sucumbíos via Memorandum No. DP21-2026-4001-M, dated October 3, 2026, which certified the technical, procedural, and physical infrastructure viability of the integration.

What changes in the judicial map of the oil zone

The resolution is based on articles 156, 157, and 264 of the Organic Code of the Judicial Function, which empower the Plenary to modify jurisdiction and to create, merge, or suppress courts following a technical report. Its effects are as follows:

• The Labor Judicial Unit based in Lago Agrio is suppressed (article 1).
• The jurisdiction of the Civil Judicial Unit of Lago Agrio is expanded to hear labor cases, in accordance with article 238 of the Organic Code of the Judicial Function and the Labor Code (article 2).
• The former First Civil Multi-competent Judicial Unit of Lago Agrio changes its name to Civil and Labor Judicial Unit, with four subject areas: Civil and Commercial, Labor, Tenancy and Neighborhood Relations, and Constitutional.
• Resolution 321-2014, dated December 3, 2014, which had created the now-suppressed labor unit, is expressly repealed.

Deadlines and transition of cases

The transitory provisions establish a short and staggered execution calendar by several national directorates of the Judiciary Council:

• Three days from publication to reconfigure the SATJE system and enable the new labor matter in the receiving unit.
• Twenty days for the Provincial Directorate of Sucumbíos and the National Directorate of Procedural Management to analyze the equitable, equal, and random reassignment of the migrated procedural workload.
• Fifteen days to inform the public and the bodies linked to the administration of justice about the suppression and the new competencies.

Judges coming from the suppressed unit who join the new Civil and Labor Judicial Unit will retain the competence to continue processing previously assigned cases until their conclusion. Judicial staff, on the other hand, will be subject to the administrative provisions of the Provincial Directorate of Sucumbíos. The regulation is effective from its approval, regardless of its publication, and was signed by president Mercedes Johanna Caicedo Aldaz and members Magaly Camila Ruiz Cajas, Damián Alberto Larco Guamán, and Fabián Plinio Fabara Gallardo, with certification from the general secretary Marco Antonio Cárdenas Chum.

Impact for workers and employers

For labor litigants in Lago Agrio, the epicenter of oil activity in Sucumbíos, the change means filing and following their cases before the civil justice of the canton, which is now also competent in labor matters, with a single headquarters and a single management system. The concentration seeks to balance the dispatch workload between highly unequal judicatures and prevent the labor unit, with barely 99 cases, from continuing to operate as a separate structure compared to a civil judicature with more than a thousand processes. The risk noted in the file itself is one of management: the migration of cases, the reassignment among judges, and the dissemination to users must be completed in a few weeks so that access to labor justice in the area does not suffer delays.

Source: Official Registry, Sixth Supplement No. 398, Tuesday, October 27, 2026, p. 20 (official reference: Resolution 224-2026 of the Plenary of the Council of the Judiciary).